collections.unu.educollections.unu.edu/eserv/unu:6012/comdeks_ii_case_study...disclaimers: the views...

A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH TO RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

Lessons from Phase II of the COMDEKS Programme

Empowered lives. Resilient nations.

Disclaimers: The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations Development Programme, its Executive Board, the United Nations Member States or the GEF. This is an independent publication by the COMDEKS Programme. The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on maps in this document do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

Reproduction: All rights reserved. This publication or parts of it may not be reproduced, stored by means of any system or transmitted, in any form or by any medium, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or of any other type, without the prior permission of the United Nations Development Programme.

Authors: Gregory Mock and Tamara Tschentscher

Editors: Diana Salvemini and Nick Remple

The production of this publication was coordinated by Tamara Tschentscher, supported by Hanuma Semyonov.

Acknowledgements: This publication and the case studies profiled in it would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions and support of the GEF SGP Country Programme staff - Singay Dorji and Tshering Zam (Bhutan), Marie-Laure Mpeck and Aime Kamga (Cameroon), Eduardo Mata and Paula Zuniga (Costa Rica), Ana Maria Varea and Johana Jacome (Ecuador), Juan René Guzman (El Salvador), Catharina Dwihastarini and Hery Budiarto (Indonesia), Evgeniia Postnova (Kyrgyzstan), Ganbaatar Bandi and Narangarav Gankhuyag (Mongolia), Nickey Gaseb and Rauna Nghatanga (Namibia), and Nanatao Ismail Boucar (Niger) - as well as COMDEKS grantees and partners.

Special thanks to Fumiko Fukuoka for her invaluable contribution to making the COMDEKS Programme happen.

UNDP would like to thank the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, the United Nations University for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity for their continuous support of COMDEKS, and the Global Environment Facility for the parallel co-financing provided to support COMDEKS through its Small Grants Programme.

Citation: United Nations Development Programme. 2016. A Community-Based Approach to Resilient and Sustainable Landscapes: Lessons from Phase II of the COMDEKS Programme. UNDP, New York.

Cover photos: Top: COMDEKS MongoliaBottom: COMDEKS Bhutan

Designed by: Kimberly Koserowski

Published by:United Nations Development Programme, 304 East 45th Street New York, NY 10017October 2016© 2016 United Nations Development ProgrammeAll rights reservedPrinted in the United States

For more information, visit www.comdeksproject.com

http://www.comdeksproject.com

Empowered lives. Resilient nations.

A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH TO RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

Lessons from Phase II of the COMDEKS Programme

A Community-Based Approach to Resilient and Sustainable Landscapes—Lessons from Phase II of the COMDEKS Programme

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CONTENTS

Preface ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 2Foreword .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6Part 1. Applying the COMDEKS Community-Based Landscape Management ApproachPrinciples of the COMDEKS Landscape Approach ...........................................................................................................................12

Why a Landscape Approach? ..........................................................................................................................................................12

Why Community-Based? ..................................................................................................................................................................12

What Are the Goals of Community-Based Landscape Management? .............................................................................15

Applying the COMDEKS Landscape Approach .................................................................................................................................16

1. Identifying the Target Landscape .........................................................................................................................................16

2. Participatory Landscape Planning ........................................................................................................................................17

Conducting the Baseline Assessment .........................................................................................................................18

Applying the Resilience Indicators ...............................................................................................................................18

Developing the Landscape Strategy ...........................................................................................................................22

Assembling a Portfolio of Community-Led Projects ..............................................................................................23

3. Project Execution and Adaptive Management ................................................................................................................23

Local Empowerment and Capacity Development ..................................................................................................23

Adaptive Management Cycle: Application, Innovation, Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, Adjustment .24

4. Landscape-Level Governance ................................................................................................................................................25

Expanding the Landscape Governance Capacity of Communities ..................................................................26

Creating a Landscape Community ...............................................................................................................................26

Reconfiguring Landscape Governance Institutions ...............................................................................................27

Part 2. COMDEKS Phase II Country Case StudiesBhutan: Gamri Watershed .........................................................................................................................................................................32

Cameroon: The Bogo Landscape ............................................................................................................................................................46

Costa Rica: Jesús María River Basin ........................................................................................................................................................60

Ecuador: Napo River Watershed, Amazon ...........................................................................................................................................74

El Salvador: Jiquilisco Bay, Bajo Lempa, and Jaltepeque Estuary ...............................................................................................90

Indonesia: Semau Island ......................................................................................................................................................................... 104

Kyrgyzstan: Lake Issyk-Kul ...................................................................................................................................................................... 118

Mongolia: Central Selenge Region ..................................................................................................................................................... 134

Namibia: Iipumbu-ya-Tshilongo Conservancy ............................................................................................................................... 150

Niger: Lake Tabalak .................................................................................................................................................................................. 164

The Way Forward: The Transition to Broad Application of COMDEKS Insights Celebrating the COMDEKS Accomplishment .................................................................................................................................. 178

Applying and Extending COMDEKS Insights .................................................................................................................................. 178

Meeting the Challenges Ahead ............................................................................................................................................................ 180

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Preface

PREFACEThe Satoyama Initiative started as a collaboration between the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability. It has brought new thinking to the practice of rural development through its popularization of the concept of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) and its elaboration of models to sustainably manage these spaces. The vision of SEPLS has proved highly influential as a way to structure sustainable development in rural environments where livelihoods and cultures are still tightly coupled with natural resource use, and local knowledge and custom provide a foundation for sustainable land use practices. The concepts of the Satoyama Initiative have brought together the science of ecology with the human dimension of rural resource use to envision land use systems that enrich and sustain rural communities while they safeguard ecosystem services and biodiversity. These concepts stress resource management for landscape resilience and reliance on participatory governance mechanisms so that the stewards of the landscape—the local communities—also become the primary beneficiaries of this resilience.

The International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), launched in October 2010, is a global platform aiming to facilitate and accelerate the implementation of activities under the Satoyama Initiative. In line with the IPSI’s strategic mission, the COMDEKS Programme has been pivotal in demonstrating how these approaches can be put into practice, applying the Indicators of Resilience in SEPLS, originally developed by the United Nations University and Bioversity International. Supported by the Japan Biodiversity Fund, it is indeed the IPSI flagship effort and as such, COMDEKS’ role—supported and facilitated by the United Nations Development Programme—has been ground-breaking.

COMDEKS builds on the continued collaboration between the Government of Japan and UNDP to promote knowledge sharing and expertise, and to strengthen capacities for sustainable development towards achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Thus, the COMDEKS Programme provides support for local community activities that maintain and revitalize critical production landscapes and seascapes and disseminates best practices learned from this approach. Since its inception in 2011, COMDEKS has supported 215 community-led initiatives across 20 countries globally, inspiring new visions for landscape management in rural settings, increasing local food security and livelihood opportunities, and creating dynamic landscape networks.

This report, which details achievements during the second phase of the COMDEKS Programme, shows how much progress has been made in defining the goals, planning processes, funding mechanisms, and monitoring systems needed to make sustainable landscape management a reality. It demonstrates the strengths of the COMDEKS methodology in a variety of different geographic, cultural, and governance settings, tackling a wide array of environmental, social, and economic challenges. I am sure I am not alone in being inspired by these achievements.

This excitement to embrace a holistic landscape vision and share landscape experiences is common among COMDEKS communities. Similarly, by sharing these COMDEKS successes widely through this report, I hope we can demonstrate the inherent strength of a vision of landscape resilience generated by local people, accomplished through local action, embraced by local and national government, and supported technically and financially by an innovative donor community.

Reiji KamezawaDirector GeneralNature Conservation BureauMinistry of the Environment of Japan

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Foreword

FOREWORDWith the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), interest in integrated approaches to rural develop-ment is keener than ever—approaches that combine a holistic view of rural landscapes, the communities and the ecosystems that comprise them, with an ability to address the combination of income, food security, environmental, and social issues that confront rural families. The Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative Programme (COMDEKS), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), represents just such an approach. With its emphasis on improving landscape-level resilience through community action, COMDEKS embodies the belief that truly integrated local solutions demand a landscape approach that recog-nizes the interconnectedness of ecosystem services, local food production, natural resource use, income opportuni-ties, governance and culture beyond a single community and across a larger geographical area.

The structure of the COMDEKS Programme reflects the insights of UNDP’s three decades of experience in local development. The first insight is that, to be effective, community-based organizations must be the driving force in rural development strategies, meaning they must take the lead in project planning, governance, execution, and monitoring. A second insight is that participatory landscape governance represents an effective foundation for the organization of community-based, multi-stakeholder approaches to land and resource management. The third insight is that integrated solutions are best approached at a landscape scale—a scale large enough to encompass the processes and systems that underpin ecosystem services, rural economic production, and local cultures.

The present volume shows how effective COMDEKS has been in capturing these insights and systemizing them into a coherent community-based landscape approach. With experience in 20 pilot countries to date, the Programme has developed a step-by-step process to help landscape communities undertake a baseline assess-ment of landscape conditions, negotiate a multi-community Landscape Strategy to manage land uses and restore landscape resilience, and carry out a slate of community-led projects aimed at reaching the Strategy’s goals. The case studies that follow provide valuable examples of the COMDEKS approach and the improvements in ecosystem services, and rural productivity, income, and community empowerment that result.

The lessons learned from these country cases will provide instrumental guidance for other UNDP programs working at the community level to deliver the SDGs and to strengthen the resilience of rural landscapes and societies to the effects of global climate change. This includes the UNDP-implemented Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP), which has recently adopted a landscape-based approach to guide its project funding decisions. In particular, the 15 SGP “Upgrading Country Programs”—the countries with the most mature project portfolios and the most developed civil society networks—will find the COMDEKS experience invaluable as they adapt their programs to embrace a landscape approach. For these and other community-based develop-ment programs, COMDEKS offers a potent example of how environment and development benefits can be scaled over larger geographic areas and over many communities simultaneously, and how these efforts can be linked to national development and land use planning to magnify their effects.

UNDP is grateful to the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, the United Nations University, and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity for their support and collaboration in funding and implementing the COMDEKS Programme.

Magdy Martínez-SolimánAssistant Secretary GeneralAssistant Administrator and DirectorBureau for Policy and Programme SupportUnited Nations Development Programme

Introduction

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Introduction

IntroductionSince its founding in 2011, Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative—the COMDEKS Programme—has piloted a community-based model of landscape management to restore the resilience of local ecosystems and sustain the working landscapes and seascapes that rural communities depend upon. These dynamic lands and waters, known as socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS), support a variety of land uses, including farming, grazing, fishing, and forestry. Their continued productivity is central to the economic well-being and cultural identity of rural communities throughout the developing world.

The management of these landscapes also has important environmental consequences. Since SEPLS are the repository of much of the world’s crop genetic diversity and biodiversity outside of parks and protected areas, their health is critical to attaining local and global conservation goals and maintaining local crop varieties. Local land use also plays a significant role in climate change mitigation through its effects on carbon storage in soils and biomass, and is equally significant in the success of local climate change adaptation strategies.

COMDEKS provides small-scale finance—delivered through the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP)—to local community organizations to catalyze a process of participatory landscape planning and to carry out commu-nity projects that strengthen local sustainable livelihoods, conserve biodiversity, address climate change, and support local cultures. In this way, COMDEKS activities not only restore the ecological resilience of local SEPLS, but strengthen the social and economic resilience of communities within the landscape.

In addition, the COMDEKS landscape planning process in each target landscape and the projects that flow from it produce an invaluable archive of field experience and data that is documented and disseminated—via peer-to-peer exchanges, web postings, reports, media coverage, and conferences—for other communities to learn from and adapt to their own local circumstances. As such, COMDEKS is both a laboratory for community-led landscape management practices and a platform to communicate and upscale these best practices, which in turn can provide important input to national land use policies.

The COMDEKS landscape management approach has been implemented in target landscapes in 20 countries spread over two phases since 2011. Case studies and insights from the ten COMDEKS Phase I countries—Brazil, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, India, Malawi, Nepal, Slovakia, and Turkey—were presented in the 2014 report Communities in Action for Landscape Resilience and Sustainability: The COMDEKS Programme.

The current publication presents guidance, insights, and case studies from the ten COMDEKS Phase II countries: Bhutan, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Namibia, and Niger. The target landscapes and seascapes in these countries differ markedly, representing a range of ecosystems: river basins in Ecuador and Costa Rica; inland lakes in Niger and Kyrgyzstan; agropastoral systems in Cameroon; mountain ecosystems in Bhutan; coastal seascapes in El Salvador and Indonesia; and grasslands in Mongolia and Namibia. This variety of landscapes emphasizes the flexibility and adaptability of the COMDEKS landscape management approach, and also points up the challenges of landscape-level environmental governance in any ecosystem type.

COMDEKS is funded by the Japan Biodiversity Fund and implemented by UNDP in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, the CBD Secretariat, and the United Nations University’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability. While other community-based approaches to landscape management have been imple-mented by UNDP and others, COMDEKS is distinguished by its participatory methods of landscape assessment, community goal-setting and project execution, as well as its SGP funding mechanism.

https://comdeksproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/communities-in-action-comdeks-web-v2.pdf

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Introduction

COMDEKS Local Project Funding: GEF Small Grants Programme

COMDEKS activities are delivered through the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), a decentralized funding mechanism with more than 20 years of experience delivering small grants to community organizations for local development projects. Following SGP protocols, COMDEKS projects are approved by National Steering Committees in each country—multistakeholder groups composed of representatives from civil society organizations (a majority), along with representatives of government, UNDP, and other donors. Grants are made directly to CBOs and local NGOs, since they take the lead role in planning and carrying out local landscape projects. Within each country, a National Coordinator and a Programme Assistant support local grantees in planning and carrying out project activities, measuring progress against goals, communicating and sharing experiences with other grantees, and meeting the formal requirements of the grantmaking process.

Golden Bee Farm, Ak-Dobo village, COMDEKS Kyrgyzstan

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Introduction

This publication is comprised of two parts:

• Part I summarizes the defining principles of the COMDEKS community-based landscape management approach, and sets out the step-by-step process used to apply the approach.

• Part II presents up-to-date case material for each of the ten countries participating in Phase II of the COMDEKS Programme. This material describes the target landscapes, sets the local context of environmental, social, and economic conditions and challenges; describes the participatory landscape planning process; enumerates local program activities; and reports preliminary findings. Part II ends with a short consideration of what the COMDEKS Programme has achieved, how these insights can be applied both within and beyond UNDP, and the challenges that lie ahead for the COMDEKS community-based landscape approach.

Readers should note that local projects are still underway or have just concluded in many of the COMDEKS Phase II country programs. Thus, this report does not represent a final enumeration of Phase II results or an ex-post evalu-ation of the COMDEKS Programme’s overall effectiveness.

Greenhouse with walls built from soil bags, COMDEKS Mongolia

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Introduction

The Satoyama Initiative

The COMDEKS Programme is the flagship of the Satoyama Initiative, a global effort to promote the sustainable use of natural resources in rural production landscapes. The Satoyama Initiative’s core vision is “to realize societies in harmony with nature,” that is, to build on positive human-nature relationships.

The Satoyama Initiative started as a joint collaboration between Japan’s Ministry of the Environment and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability. It recognizes that in order to promote societies in harmony with nature, it is necessary to consider not only the ecosystems that surround us but to understand the role that people around the world have played in shaping landscapes to support their livelihoods and well-being. The Initiative had its origins in 2006 in an assessment of ecosystem conditions in Japan that noted that many traditional working landscapes combining a mosaic of different land uses—such as paddy fields, woodlands, ponds, canals, and settlements—produced a bundle of goods and services that both sustained the local economy and conserved local biodiversity. In Japan, these sustainably managed landscapes are known as satoyama, but such living landscapes exist, to varying extents, in every nation, often as the remnants of traditional land management systems.

As the discussion of sustainable development has progressed over the last decade, it has become clear that such landscapes are important examples of the kind of human-nature relationship capable of producing the three pillars of sustainable development—environmental, social, and economic sustain-ability. The Satoyama Initiative is focused on revitalizing these socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) as dynamic elements of sustainable rural development and key contributors to the conservation of global biodiversity.

The Satoyama Initiative’s approach to revitalizing SEPLS is built on six principles:

• Resource use within the carrying capacity and resilience of the environment.

• Cyclic use of natural resources.

• Recognition of the value and importance of local traditions and cultures.

• Multistakeholder participation and collaboration in sustainable landscape management.

• Contributions to sustainable socioeconomies, including poverty reduction, food security, sustain-able livelihoods, and local community empowerment.

• Improved community resilience.

Part 1

Applying the COMDEKSCommunity-Based Landscape Management Approach

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Part 1. Applying the COMDEKS Community-Based Landscape Management Approach

Principles of the COMDEKS Landscape ApproachThe activities and outcomes of the COMDEKS Programme flow from its embrace of a Landscape Approach, which sees the ecosystems, land uses, and communities in the landscape as a single interactive and integrated system—a socio-ecological production landscape or seascape. In this approach, community-led projects are the focus of attention, with the goal being restoration of landscape resilience to support sustainable local livelihoods, ecosystem health, and biodiversity conservation. Using this approach, more than 100 projects by community organizations in the 20 COMDEKS pilot countries are underway. These projects are contributing to landscape-level outcomes to optimize ecosystem services, enhance agroecosystem sustainability and productivity, develop local green economies, and strengthen participatory decision-making and landscape governance.

Why a Landscape Approach?

A landscape approach is needed to integrate the mosaic of SEPLS land uses. Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes are typified by a mosaic of land uses and land types: small-scale farm fields, pastures, orchards and agroforestry plots; forest patches, larger unbroken forest tracts, and wild areas; ponds and water-ways; as well as human settlements and infrastructure such as roads and transmission lines. These adjacent land uses and ecosystems are coupled and highly interactive, with changes in one parcel—such as removal of vegeta-tion, water diversions, or overharvesting—affecting other parcels nearby. Managing such a mosaic of land uses requires an integrated approach that sees the interactions among landscape activities and can harmonize them to optimize production, manage trade-offs, and ensure sustainability. In a landscape approach, SEPLS are looked upon and governed as a single integrated system from which many benefits are produced that, while clearly differ-entiated, are nonetheless interrelated and mutually supportive. Indeed, the diversity of land uses and productive activities, when properly integrated, is one of the keys to SEPLS sustainability.

A landscape approach can accommodate landscape-scale ecological, social, and economic processes. Many processes vital to SEPLS productivity function at scales larger than the local or community level. Watershed functions, habitat quality, and biodiversity trends—all factors affecting the biological integrity of SEPLS—operate at a landscape level or larger. So do the risks from climate change, water pollution, and other environmental threats originating from outside sources. Economic and cultural forces that affect communities in the landscape—such as farm commodity prices or rural-urban migration—also reflect forces operating at larger scales. A landscape approach, by focusing beyond the local level and keeping in mind the interaction of these factors, can operate from a more holistic perspec-tive, resulting in interventions that address these factors simultaneously and with greater effect.

A landscape approach encourages cross-community interactions and synergies among community projects. In the COMDEKS Programme, communities are the focus of interventions to sustainably manage local ecosystems. They plan and carry out all local projects funded under the Programme. But these individual community-led projects do not exist in isolation, just as each community is not an island within the landscape. Rather, communities are linked with each other through their physical effects on the landscape, their social and cultural bonds, and their mutual dependence on local and regional economies. A landscape approach recognizes this interdependence, and uses it as the point of departure for landscape planning and management. Thus, in COMDEKS, all communities within the landscape come together to assess landscape conditions, agree on landscape-wide management goals, and suggest a portfolio of community projects to attain these goals. Adopting this multi-community approach fosters synergies among projects throughout the landscape, enhances communication and learning exchange among communities, and ultimately magnifies the effects of the project portfolio, creating a “landscape-level effect” over time.

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Why Community-Based?

Rural communities are primary agents of landscape change, and can be prime movers in rebuilding landscape resilience. Rural communities are the residents, custodians, and everyday users of SEPLS. Their lives and livelihoods are based on SEPLS productivity, and their cultural and social lives are deeply connected to the forests, grasslands, fields, wetlands, and waterways within their landscapes. Who better, then, to manage these landscapes, both for sustainability and local well-being? In fact, local agricultural practices, grazing patterns, fishing practices, and forest uses are already a major determinant of landscape health. When these practices are unsustainable, environmental conditions in the landscape deteriorate. On the other hand, when local residents adopt environmentally appropriate land use practices, landscape health, resilience, and productivity can rebound. At the same time, no one has greater incentive to invest in sustainable landscape practices than local communities, if these practices can be shown to increase local ecosystem productivity, recover lost ecosystem services such as watershed regulation and soil fertility, or reduce local vulnerability from environmental risks such as climate change.

Communities are a storehouse of locally adapted land-scape knowledge and the frontline of adaptation and innovation. Given their intimate knowledge of local conditions, community members are often in the best position to improve ecosystem conditions on the ground and restore landscape resilience. Indeed, many commu-nities have inherited a wealth of indigenous knowledge about the plants, animals, foods, medicines, and materials found in the local landscape, and are heirs to traditional natural resource management systems and farming practices adapted over generations to be productive and sustainable under local conditions. While many of these traditional systems have been supplanted by less sustain-able land use patterns more recently, they still provide a reservoir of local knowledge that can inform COMDEKS community-based projects to improve farming, forestry, and fishing practices. In fact, this knowledge base is often the root of innovation, allowing community members to adapt new technologies and practices to local ecosystem and cultural conditions.


What are SEPLS?

Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) are dynamic mosaic landscapes with a mix of habitats and land uses including villages, farmland and adjacent woods, forests, grass-lands, wetlands, and coastal areas. These landscapes and seascapes have been shaped over the years by the interac-tion between people and nature in ways that maintain biodiversity and provide humans with goods and services needed for their wellbeing.

Preparation of palm leaves for roofing, COMDEKS El Salvador

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Communities must own the process of landscape planning and management if it is to be sustainable. The COMDEKS landscape approach is rooted in the belief that if communities are to embrace the ethic of landscape sustainability, they must own the process of landscape assessment and strategic planning, and take responsibility for the execution and evaluation of community projects. This local ownership and executive function is expressed through the leadership of community groups such as local NGOs, cooperatives, advocacy groups, self-help groups, and other community-based organizations. Decades of field experience with community-based natural resource management has shown that this kind of local empowerment can create the kind of incentive for change and commitment to collective action among local people that successful and sustainable landscape management requires. A rationale for action generated locally and promoted by local groups has proven much more effective and long-lasting than government mandates or programs generated by outside groups.

Community-led action creates a foundation for political empowerment beyond the local level. Adopting a community-based approach does not mean that community stewardship is the only factor affecting the condition of rural landscapes. Other actors are also responsible for landscape change, such as governments, corporations, and other large landowners. Indeed, the influence of these actors often dwarfs the influence of local communities in land use decisions. But increasing local agency and inspiring community action to plan and execute sustainable landscape management creates a context of empowerment and engagement that allows local people to demon-strate their capacities as land managers and assert their interests more effectively when land use decisions are made at the state or corporate level. In this context, partnerships between communities and state and corporate entities that give communities a real voice in landscape governance become more possible.

Small producer planting trees on his farm, Jesús María River Basin, COMDEKS Costa Rica

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What Are the Goals of Community-Based Landscape Management?

Restore landscape resilience and promote equitable and sustainable rural development. In the broadest terms, the primary goal of community-based landscape management is to build and maintain the ecological, social, and economic resilience of SEPLS as the foundation of sustainable rural development and biodiversity conservation. Resil-ience is the ability of a system to absorb disturbances while retaining its basic structure and productive ability. In the context of SEPLS, ecological resilience entails the ability to deliver ecosystem services in the face of human pressures. These services underlie local food security and the long-term success of all other resource uses in the landscape.

In addition to healthy ecosystems, the social systems and economic systems at work within landscape communities must also be resilient. Economic resilience is expressed in the existence of a robust and sustainable local economy in which the availability of livelihoods rooted in the productivity of local ecosystems features prominently. Social resilience refers to the ability of community members to work together to address common problems and achieve common goals. This includes the ability to resolve conflicts and to address the needs of poor and marginalized groups within the community. It also includes the capacity of institutions and governance processes to react to complex problems and changing circumstances, such as occur on a landscape with many simultaneous occupants and land uses. Ultimately, a resilient landscape provides the ecological, social, and economic conditions in which the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved in rural communities.

Develop the capacity of local organizations to inspire and direct collective action to manage local landscapes. Community-based landscape management functions through a process of participatory planning and project management led by local community organizations. These community-based groups are responsible for focusing local interest through the baseline landscape assessment; channeling local demand by drawing up a landscape strategy reflecting local needs and a shared community vision; and inspiring community participation to carry out local projects under the landscape strategy. Building the capacity of these groups to provide such local leadership is part of the larger goal of empowering communities to manage their working landscape effectively and sustainably.

Apply adaptive management that can evolve as conditions change and knowledge increases. The dynamic nature of landscapes and the many variables that affect their productivity and health require a management approach with flexibility and the capacity to learn rapidly from experience. The community-led projects under-taken through COMDEKS represent such “adaptive management”—a learn-by-doing approach in which project results are systematically analyzed by the community and the results used to improve the next cycle of landscape projects. Thus, landscape interventions and the landscape strategy itself are approached as steps in a long-term learning process rather than one-off projects.

Achieve landscape-level outcomes that can be scaled up. The power of a community-based landscape manage-ment approach is that it links local community benefits with landscape-level outcomes. This link is forged through a process in which communities across the landscape agree on a slate of projects, each of which will be under-taken locally, but that together can affect ecosystem, economic, and social conditions over a large area. Through design, the suite of landscape projects are meant to achieve a certain scale. Further scaling up is encouraged by the practice of documenting project results and extracting project lessons that can be shared with other inter-ested communities, either directly through site visits, or remotely via learning networks or the web.

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Applying the COMDEKS Landscape ApproachThe COMDEKS landscape management approach proceeds through a step-wise process in which the target landscape is first identified and a process of participatory landscape planning set in motion. A baseline assessment of ecological, social, and economic conditions on the landscape then initiates a phase of community education and mobilization, in which a consensus emerges about the state of the landscape and the actions needed to increase its resilience and meet local development needs. This consensus takes the tangible form of a Landscape Strategy with clear objectives, targets and indicators. From this effort emerges a slate of community-level initiatives to achieve the identified landscape goals—local projects managed by community groups and achieved through collective action. Regular monitoring and evaluation of results, followed by analysis, documentation, and communication to stakeholders and other inter-ested communities are part of the project regimen. Taking stock through ex-post assessments, as well as revisiting and modifying the Landscape Strategy, complete the adaptive management cycle and leave the landscape communities poised for another round of local projects. These steps are discussed in greater detail below.

Figure 1. The COMDEKS Approach to Resilient Landscapes

1. Identifying the Target Landscape

The first step in piloting the COMDEKS Landscape Approach is identifying an appropriate rural landscape. Typically, pilot landscapes include several different small to moderate-size communities, a variety of local land uses, and notable biodiversity. Relevant parameters to consider in landscape selection include what natural and cultural assets the area contains, what economic activities dominate, the threats and opportunities that currently exist in the area, and the presence of particular species or unique biodiversity. Existing studies of the area and GIS analyses of the region may be helpful in evaluating these factors. One of the most critical criteria for selecting the target landscape is the interest of local communities, as well as the willingness of government agencies to encourage and facilitate the landscape management effort. Other considerations may include national land use plans already existing for the area, including the existence of Protected Areas, natural resource concessions, or infrastructure plans that may interfere with or need to be considered in local landscape planning. It may also be useful to deter-mine whether and when other development interventions have been undertaken in the area, since this may affect the willingness and capacity of local residents to embrace the COMDEKS Programme.

LANDSCAPE

IDENTIFICATION

Survey Landscape Assets, Threats, and Land Uses;

Assess Community Willingness to

Participate

PARTICIPATORY LANDSCAPE PLANNING

Conduct Baseline Assessment;

Develop Landscape Strategy

COMMUNITY-LED

PROJECTS

Build Local Capacity and Carry Out the Landscape

Strategy Through Community

Landscape Projects

FACILITATING KNOWLEDGE

AND LEARNING

Extract Lessons from Project

Monitoring and Ex Post Assessments

Adaptive Management Cycle

UP-SCALING

Disseminate Lessons Learned;

Inform National and Subnational Policies

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Once candidate areas are identified, a stakeholder analysis is conducted to determine the salient actors in the landscape and their relative relationships. Stakeholders from all sectors should be considered, including indig-enous peoples; women’s, elders’ and youth groups; local and national NGOs; representatives from local farmers, fishers, tourism operators, cooperatives, and labor unions; as well as local, provincial, and national governments, including Ministries such as Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries that have resource management responsibilities within the landscape. Preliminary contact with these stakeholders is necessary to determine the scope of possible COMDEKS activities, to identify potential allies and partners for these activities, and to help set up an effective participatory process for landscape assessment and planning, commencing with the Baseline Assessment. Prelim-inary consultation is also important in determining the exact boundaries and definition of the target landscape. It is essential that local people recognize these boundaries as relevant and consistent with their actual land use and with local custom, otherwise local ownership of landscape projects may be undermined.

2. Participatory Landscape Planning

The participatory landscape planning process lies at the heart of the COMDEKS model as a mechanism for commu-nity engagement and education, a tool to elicit a community-spawned vision for restoring landscape resilience, and a platform for building the social capital needed to reach consensus on and carry out the actions necessary to achieve this landscape vision. The participatory landscape planning process used in the COMDEKS Programme has three phases: conducting the Baseline Assessment, forging a Landscape Strategy based on the Baseline Assessment, and identifying suitable community-led projects to achieve the goals of the Landscape Strategy.

Site visit for the Baseline Assessment of the Bogo Landscape, COMDEKS Cameroon

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Conducting the Baseline Assessment

Community engagement begins with the Baseline Assessment of landscape resilience, which generates the infor-mation communities need to understand the conditions that exist on their landscape and how these affect local livelihoods and influence local social and economic trends. The primary input to the Baseline Assessment comes directly from communities in the target area through public consultations in which community members communi-cate their experiences and knowledge of conditions on the landscape. This community input is generated through a structured discussion in which community members consider and score a set of 20 Resilience Indicators designed to probe the current ecological, social, and economic conditions in the target landscape. Additional input is generated on the status and vulnerability of local agroecosystems and the state of landscape governance by performing assess-ments in these areas with the help of specialized tools developed by COMDEKS and the Small Grants Programme (see below). The baseline assessment may also benefit from existing studies of landscape conditions undertaken by government agencies and other interested parties such as NGOs and academic institutions.

Applying the Resilience Indicators

Community consultations for the Baseline Assessment are carefully planned to be inclusive and representative of the community. Consultations are generally facilitated by a local NGO tasked with carrying out and documenting the Baseline Assessment. Sessions take place in one or more accessible locations, with representatives from the various stakeholder groups identified in the earlier stakeholder analysis. These typically include general commu-nity members, representatives of local traditional authorities and indigenous peoples, government officials and service providers, as well as private sector representatives, with special attention given to gender and age balance and the creation of an environment conducive to group interaction and discussion.

One of the main tasks before the group is to consider, discuss, and score a set of Resilience Indicators that measure five interrelated dimensions of landscape resilience:

• ecosystem protection and biodiversity maintenance;

• agricultural biodiversity;

• knowledge, learning and innovation;

• governance and social equity; and

• livelihoods and well-being.

The indicator set includes both qualitative and quantitative indicators, with measurement based on the observa-tions, perceptions, and experiences of the local communities themselves. Indicator scoring by the group helps to determine not just current landscape conditions, but trends over time.

In practice, the basic indicator set, which was developed by the United Nations University and Bioversity Interna-tional, is often customized to reflect the circumstances of each particular landscape or seascape, with the language of some questions modified or deleted entirely, and other questions added. Translation into the local language is often necessary so that language does not present a barrier to participation. In addition, although discussions are usually carried out as mixed gender sessions, in some instances separate men’s and women’s groups have been created to insure women’s uninhibited participation.

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The resilience indicators provide communities with a framework for discussion and analysis of biological, social, and economic factors that determine SEPLS resilience. This relates to critical livelihood and development objec-tives such as food security, agricultural sustainability, human development, maintenance of ecosystem services, biodiversity preservation, strengthening local community organizations and civil society; and landscape gover-nance that is equitable and sustainable. While these can be complex topics, experience from pilot countries shows that they become much more approachable through group discussion using local examples and personal experi-ence. The result is that participants leave the community consultation with a good working knowledge of what resilience means in the local landscape.

The COMDEKS Resilience Indicator Toolkit

The experience gained in applying the Resilience Indicator set in COMDEKS pilot countries has been captured in the Toolkit for the Indicators of Resilience in Socio-ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes. This online publication provides step-by-step guidance on how to utilize the resilience indicators as part of the Baseline Assessment, both as a source of information on the state of the landscape and as an inspiration for community action. The toolkit provides a definition of resilience as it relates to SEPLS, as well as a discus-sion of the Resilience Indicators themselves. The Resilience Indicator set consists of 20 indicators designed to capture different aspects of key systems—ecological, agricultural, cultural, and socio-economic. They aim to provide communities with a framework for discussion and analysis of socio-ecological processes essential for SEPLS resilience. In so doing, they can contribute to a community’s sense of ownership over the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their production and resource management practices. The toolkit furnishes detailed advice and examples from the field on how to apply the indicator set in many social settings, and how to score, interpret, communicate, and act on the results.

Hammock weaving, COMDEKS El Salvador

https://comdeksproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/toolkit-indicators-web.pdf

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Complementing the Resilience Indicator scorecard may be other participatory exercises such as resource mapping, problem tree analyses, and focus groups on biodiversity, local agriculture, climate change, and other topics of special interest. To guide the local Baseline Assessment facilitators through the presentation, discussion, and scoring of the resilience indicator set and other group exercises in the community consultation, COMDEKS has compiled a Toolkit for the Indicators of Resil-ience, which provides step-by-step instructions and tips drawn from experience in COMDEKS pilot countries. (See Box.)

The benefits of the resilience indicator scoring and other joint exercises that are part of the Baseline Assessment go far beyond the actual scores produced. These exercises provide the social foundation for communication and cooperation among the sometimes disparate group of stakeholders. Joint mapping and scoring exercises offer a neutral space in which complex topics can be approached without undue conflict. They establish a mutual language and knowledge base that foster relationships of trust and mutual understanding, and form the basis for communication and negotiation going forward. Indeed, this is often the basis for multistakeholder partnerships that support landscape projects to address issues identified by the group during the Baseline Assessment.

The relationships created in this process and the networks and partnerships formed within and between landscape communities create the kind of social capital that is required to enable the collective action that lies behind successful community projects. In addition, the partnerships formed with government officials and other support groups will become key assets as communities move to implement their landscape plans in the future.

Using the resilience indicators set and landscape mapping is also essential to articulating the values behind the Participa-tory Landscape Planning process, such as the need to measure both biodiversity, social, and economic indicators so that the community can decide on the goals they wish to pursue in their Landscape Strategy. In effect, the resilience indicator set has values embedded within it that are part of the larger effort of awareness-raising within the community to prepare for COMDEKS interventions. For example, it highlights the importance of landscape governance, and gives community members a sense of the trade-offs that will be involved in landscape management. In the end, the application of the Resil-ience Indicators in the community consultation is as much about educating, orienting, and inspiring community members for the landscape visioning process to come as it is about generating data for the Baseline Assessment.

Community gardens (chakras) grow a biodiverse mix of local crops, COMDEKS Ecuador

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Agroecosystem and Landscape Governance Assessments

Given the importance of food security and the prevalence of small-holder farming in most COMDEKS landscapes, assessing the resilience of local agroecosystems takes on considerable importance in the Baseline Assessment. Consequently, COMDEKS, in partnership with SGP, has created a special assessment tool to help community members evaluate how well agroecological principles are being applied in their farming systems, determine how vulnerable their fields and crop systems are to climate and other risks, and identify how they can improve their overall resilience. While the Resilience Indicators touch upon local agricultural resilience, the Agroecosystem Vulnerability Assessment Manual probes more deeply into agroecosystem conditions. The manual helps commu-nity members examine factors such as soil conditions and drainage (for example, porosity, nutrient and organic matter content, and erosive potential); vegetation structure, including the presence of windrows and hedgerows; and landscape diversity, including the mix of fields, wild patches, and nearby forests.

Similarly, COMDEKS, in partnership with the NGO Natural Justice, is developing a Landscape Governance Self-Assess-ment Tool to help community members examine the institutions, platforms, and formal and informal networks that are active in managing the local landscape. A variety of formal and informal governance arrangements are often present in a given landscape, with several government agencies charged with natural resource management often existing in parallel with customary management systems, multistakeholder groups, and various levels of local munic-ipal government. Determining the responsibilities of these various agents and how well they cooperate to govern local land uses for sustainability and local benefit is crucial to an overall picture of landscape resilience.

Resource mapping of the Gamri Watershed, COMDEKS Bhutan

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Developing the Landscape Strategy

The Baseline Assessment provides an organized body of data and information on local landscape conditions and trends. Through its resilience scoring exercises and public discussion, it also begins the process of building a landscape perspective and ethic—a way of viewing these trends and conditions more holistically and from the standpoint of resilience to climate shocks and other threats and pressures. Further, it initiates the process of building a “landscape community” consisting of the different local community organizations, government entities, and support groups that must come together to manage the landscape for resilience and sustainability. All these elements are important in the development of the Landscape Strategy, which is the basic blueprint that communi-ties will use to guide their landscape management actions in both the short and longer terms.

To arrive at the Landscape Strategy, the group participating in the community consultation considers the results of the Resilience Indicator scoring exercise and other data developed on landscape conditions. Community concerns and threats to the landscape are identified and actions to address them mapped out and prioritized. From this frank discussion of the current strengths and weaknesses in landscape resilience, the group formulates a vision for what a resilient landscape should look like and identifies long-term objectives for landscape management to achieve this vision. These objectives are put in the form of Landscape Resilience Outcomes in four key topic areas:

• Ecosystem services and biodiversity;

• Sustainable production systems and food security;

• Sustainable livelihoods;

• Landscape governance.

Participatory mapping exercise in the Central Selenge region, COMDEKS Mongolia

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For each of these four Landscape Resilience Outcomes, the group identifies Key Performance Indicators that can be used to determine whether and how much progress is being made toward the Outcomes. In addition, for each Outcome, the group compiles a list of suggested interventions that, if undertaken, would help achieve the Outcome. The result of these deliberations is a formal document—drafted by the group convening the Commu-nity Consultation—that profiles the target landscape, summarizes the baseline assessment results, proposes the agreed Landscape Resilience Outcomes and Key Indicators, indicates the strategies needed to achieve these, and lists a slate of potential community-based interventions. Once reviewed and accepted by landscape communities, the Landscape Strategy becomes a tangible reminder of their commitment to landscape resilience—a goalpost to rally around, a guide to short and long-term actions, and a yardstick to measure progress.

Assembling a Portfolio of Community-Led Projects

Once the strategic guidance of the Landscape Strategy has been provided, it is time to identify specific community projects—organized and executed by local community groups—that can be reasonably undertaken within the COMDEKS budget and timeline. The National Coordinator of the Small Grants Programme in each country assists candidate CBOs to plan and prepare project proposals tailored to a specific community or subregion of the target landscape. These proposals are considered by the SGP National Steering Committee in that country. Each local project must address one or more of the Landscape Resilience Outcomes in concrete and identifiable ways, under the leadership of a local CBO. Overall, the portfolio of projects must be distributed throughout the landscape, with a variety of different CBOs in charge of project management, and with all the Landscape Resilience Outcomes accounted for to some degree.

From the start, the portfolio is conceived as an integrated and interlinked set of locally driven solutions. Projects are designed to show both short-term outcomes and longer-term benefits that mature over time. And, clearly, as a portfolio, projects must also yield landscape-wide benefits. However, there is no expectation that all the outcomes set out in the Landscape Strategy will be fully achieved in a single project cycle through the chosen project portfolio.

3. Project Execution and Adaptive Management

Local Empowerment and Capacity Development

Individual projects in the COMDEKS portfolio in the target landscape are generated by local people and designed with local well-being in mind. Each project contains activities that contribute to local livelihoods, increase house-hold incomes, and help restore the productivity of local ecosystems. They also empower the community and build its technical, business, and social capacities, since they are carried out through collective community action. Indeed, local empowerment and capacity development are paramount goals, since these are the principal means to improve economic and social resilience. They are also critical to timely and effective project implementation.

Empowerment and capacity building are especially important for the community organizations that take on a project leadership role. These local groups are responsible for project management and execution. This means drawing up and communicating project plans, organizing work groups and schedules, motivating community members to accomplish the field work, monitoring the results, and communicating the community’s accomplish-ments. Not surprisingly, the organizational capacity of these community groups is a critical factor in the success of

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the project portfolio, yet they often have limited project management experience. The COMDEKS approach there-fore involves a significant investment by the SGP National Coordinator and other service providers in building the capabilities of these groups at the beginning of the project cycle through frequent meetings, workshops, and trainings, and in maintaining a mentor and advisory role throughout project implementation.

Adaptive Management Cycle: Application, Innovation, Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, Adjustment

COMDEKS projects are built around an adaptive management cycle that emphasizes learning, innovation, and improvement based on observed results. Local projects are looked upon as learning experiences rather than simply mechanisms to achieve a list of specified outcomes. Community groups are regarded as natural sources of innovation and adaptation and are encouraged to adjust project activities to accommodate local conditions and take advantage of indigenous knowledge. Innovation in rural landscapes often involves adapting outside technologies and resource management practices using traditional knowledge, or reconfiguring traditional practices to handle new challenges and serve new markets. The result is often a hybrid between traditional and modern practices. The COMDEKS landscape approach is predicated on the belief that encouraging such local innovation is part of the empowerment process and central to resilience in the face of landscape change.

Seedlings for home gardens, Semau Island, COMDEKS Indonesia

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Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is essential to power this cycle of learning and innovation, and to assess project performance and progress toward resilience goals. As with other aspects of project implementation, communities themselves are responsible for monitoring project results. Project participants first identify project objectives that are aligned with the landscape outcomes designated in the Landscape Strategy, and then choose appropriate indicators to assess progress and results. This participation in the design of project metrics, as well as mastery of the technical and reporting skills necessary for project monitoring, is considered another opportunity for local empowerment.

Evaluation of the overall results and impact of the project portfolio takes place at the completion of the project cycle through an Ex-post Baseline Assessment. This public meeting of the “landscape community” is the chance to analyze how projects performed individually and as a package, and to assess their impact on landscape resilience relative to the goals set out in the Landscape Strategy. Part of this portfolio assessment involves revisiting the original resilience indicator set to see how the perceptions of community members have changed upon comple-tion of the project cycle. In this way, the Ex-post Baseline Assessment becomes a vehicle not just for project evalu-ation, but for continuing the “landscape education” that communities began in the original Baseline Assessment and deepening their understanding of resilience.

To complete the adaptive management cycle, communities use the findings of the Ex-post Baseline Assessment to extract lessons on project design and implementation, pinpoint successful and unsuccessful innovations, and glean landscape-level insights on governance and large-scale ecosystem trends. These lessons can then be shared with the full array of stakeholders and made available to the much wider audience of potential users in other landscapes. This commitment to knowledge management is an essential feature of the COMDEKS landscape management approach—necessary both to take full advantage of the knowledge generated, and to build the capacity of the landscape community to distil and communicate its learning. Experience in COMDEKS pilot countries shows that the process of monitoring project results, analyzing and distilling lessons, and communi-cating these to the outside world is fundamentally empowering and allows communities to become effective agents in scaling up their successes in other landscapes.

The final step in adaptive management is using the distilled lessons of the Ex-post Baseline Assessment to refine and update the Landscape Strategy and to plan future landscape interventions. The Landscape Strategy is meant to be a living document that changes with project experience to reflect community learning and to take advantage of new opportunities as they are recognized. One of the strengths of the COMDEKS approach is that it makes the adaptive management cycle richer and more productive by undertaking a portfolio of interlinked projects simultaneously throughout the landscape. This can result in significant evolution in the Landscape Strategy in a relatively short time. Even so, translating this learning into sustained resilience gains on the ground requires continued engagement by all concerned—including donors, NGOs and government programs—over many project cycles.

4. Landscape-Level Governance

A primary goal of the COMDEKS approach is improved landscape governance—in other words, better decision-making processes and policies around land and resource use in the landscape. This involves strengthening landscape governance institutions so that they can manage the dynamic and interacting mosaic of land uses, ecosystems, and communities in an integrated and equitable manner. COMDEKS Programme activities work to achieve this in several ways that are further explained below.

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Expanding the Landscape Governance Capacity of Communities

A tenet of the COMDEKS approach is that sound landscape governance can only be achieved through the active participation of communities. COMDEKS activities help to build the capacity for this participation. By taking part in the Baseline Assessment and the creation of the Landscape Strategy, community members learn not only to under-stand resilience, but to appreciate the integrated nature of landscape governance, the necessity of a long-term vision to guide governance actions, and the importance of a step-wise approach, backed by competent monitoring and evaluation. They also learn the importance of building partnerships with NGOs, academic institutions, local and national governments, and other groups with a stake in landscape governance. Then, by carrying out local landscape projects, community members gain the capacity to plan and implement activities that serve a landscape vision. In particular, as local CBOs gain experience in community organizing, project management, and communication, they become more effective agents for good governance. They can steward and maintain work already accomplished, and advocate for new interventions to continue to improve landscape conditions. In fact, building the capacity of community organizations has proven one of the most effective ways to improve overall landscape governance in COMDEKS pilot countries, as these local groups become de facto overseers of the landscape.

Creating a Landscape Community

COMDEKS activities help weld engaged stakeholders in the landscape into a functioning community of interest. By bringing together representatives from different landscape communities, from government agencies with formal land and resource governance responsibilities, and from support organizations, the participatory landscape planning process and the project implementation cycle create an informal landscape community. This group is linked by a common understanding of local conditions, a common vision for landscape resilience, and a common set of project experiences. With these links as a foundation, the group can become an invaluable source of ideas, expertise, and advocacy for good landscape management practices—effectively an ad hoc working group for landscape governance. In many COMDEKS landscapes, this group becomes the core of a formal multistakeholder landscape governance group, or if such a multi-stakeholder forum already exists, it may greatly enrich the consultation process underway.

Community discussion during a monitoring mission, Lake Tabalak, COMDEKS Niger

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Reconfiguring Landscape Governance Institutions

Applying the COMDEKS Landscape Approach can be a catalyst for reconfiguring the governance institutions at work on the target landscape. These can include the various government agencies with formal responsibility for land use, resource extraction, water basin management, and parks management, as well as informal water user, farmer, fisher, and pastoralist groups. COMDEKS’ participatory landscape planning process and project cycle provide a context and data to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these institutions, and to assess their effectiveness at managing tradeoffs and achieving integrated landscape goals. The COMDEKS process also provides a ready source of local stakeholders with demonstrated landscape management capacity to act as new partners in landscape governance. The result can be the creation of new governance platforms such as happened in Ghana’s Weto Range (the COMDEKS target landscape) with the formation of the “WETO Platform,” a multistakeholder group that includes local civil society organizations, traditional authorities, and representatives from different levels of government, and exercises authority over resource management policies and local landscape projects in the target landscape (see Box for three examples of innovative landscape governance institutions associated with COMDEKS activities). It is also possible that existing institutions can be revitalized or augmented with new community partners and a revised mandate that formalizes local community input. In either case, the COMDEKS experience can provide a major impetus to revisit landscape governance and augment it with new perspectives and new partners.

Fostering Landscape Governance Innovations: Three Examples

COMDEKS activities can provide the impetus for innovations in landscape governance that result in greater community involvement in land use decisions and landscape-level planning processes. As the examples below demonstrate, these innovations often take the form of multistakeholder platforms with direct input into local landscape project planning and implementation. In many cases, these bodies have official government recognition and are not just advisory groups, but have decision-making authority in designated policy and implementation areas. In all cases, civil society groups play an active role in the landscape governance that results.

• Ghana: The WETO Platform. This multistakeholder body exercises authority over resource manage-ment policies and local landscape projects in the target landscape. It links traditional authorities, civil society groups, and government bodies in a single institution with the goal of approaching natural resource management from a landscape perspective. It has a three-tiered structure consisting of (a) the Weto Governing Council, (b) the Weto COMDEKS Consultative Body (WCCB), and (c) local groups and associations. The Weto Governing Council consists of representatives from local NGOs, local landowners, traditional authorities, District Assemblies, the Regional Coordinating Council, District Chief Executives, and academic institutions; it develops natural resource management policies for the region, approves management plans, garners political support, and settles disputes. The WCCB consists of representatives from local CSOs, collaborating government ministries, donors, and media, and makes day-to-day management decisions on COMDEKS projects, and monitors project progress. Local groups and associations are involved in project implementation; they range from agroforestry groups and beekeeping groups, to tree nursery and tree planting groups. The Weto Platform is regis-tered as an association and certified by the Government of Ghana. It has been successful in harmo-nizing the landscape activities of local civil society groups and bringing them into a peer relationship with local government authorities and service providers, such as the extension services provided by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

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• Ecuador: Regional Working Group and Biocorridor Roundtables. From its origin, the COMDEKS Programme in Ecuador was harmonized with the already existing SGP Ecuador program known as Biocorridors for Living Well. This program seeks to establish expanses of land (biocorridors) where ecological connectivity is reestablished, connecting fragmented habitats, incorporating sustainable production activities into the landscape, and fostering community partnerships. To facilitate biocorridor planning in the Amazon region, a regional, multistakeholder working group was formed early on, bringing together community organizations, indigenous peoples groups, NGOs, and local and provincial government authorities, as well as other stakeholders. After significant dialogue and consultation, this working group generated a political agreement among the parties on biocorridor principles and priorities. To implement this agreement, “Biocorridor Roundtables” (Mesas de Trabajo de los Biocorredores) were set up for each of the three biocorridors planned for the Amazon region. Each Biocorridor Roundtable produced a Biocorridor Action Plan, with specific guidelines developed in line with SGP and COMDEKS objectives and also aligned with government development and resource management plans. The COMDEKS projects eventually chosen were consistent with the various Biocorridor Action Plans. The Biocorridor Roundtables provide forums for direct dialogue between stakeholders such as community organizations, indigenous groups, and the technical staff of municipal and provincial authorities and government ministries. Environmental issues, sustainable production concerns, and local policies of relevance to the biocorridor stakeholders are all taken up by the Roundtables. The fact that the Biocorridor Action Plans produced by the Roundtables are linked to existing development and land use plans has encouraged high-level buy-in by the government and has allowed the Biocorridor Roundtables to position their activities as key contributions to the government’s social and environmental goals, increasing their effectiveness.

• Semau Island, Indonesia: Environmental Forums. The primary governance intervention associated with COMDEKS on Semau Island is the formation of village-level Environmental Forums in seven villages where COMDEKS activities are taking place. As in Ghana and Ecuador, these Forums are multistakeholder groups consisting of customary authorities, community leaders, community groups, and government authorities. Environmental governance on Semau Island is typically the responsibility of the state-recognized Village Chief, in association with the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, which administer the Marine National Recreation Area and the Marine National Park that occupy much of the island’s coastal areas. The village Environmental Forums bring these parties together with the customary authority of local Landlords, who heavily influence the patterns of day-to-day land use, and with community groups undertaking landscape interventions. The goal of the Environmental Forums is to ensure restoration of damaged ecosystems in the village environs and to develop a mechanism for sustaining these ecosystems in the future. The Forums provide a place for stakeholders to discuss their vision of the landscape work that is needed, to develop implementation plans, and to carry out monitoring and oversight. One of the practical effects has been the development of binding environmental agreements among local clan leaders, village governments, and community members in different villages, particularly over water use and the protection of water catchment areas, as well as sand mining in some coastal areas. The seven village Environmental Forums also convene occasional inter-village meetings to discuss issues of common concern.

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Cacao fruits, Napo River watershed, COMDEKS Ecuador

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Part 2

COMDEKS Phase II Country Case Studies


BHUTANTHE GAMRI WATERSHED

1. The Landscape

Geography

Bhutan is a small landlocked country in the eastern Himalayas, bordered by the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China in the north and the Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal and Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh to its south-west, south, and east respectively. The country is mountainous, with a rugged and steep terrain. Altitudes plunge from over 7,500 m at the highest point to less than 200 m within a distance of 170 km in the north-south direction.

The target landscape selected for COMDEKS activities is the Gamri watershed, located in the eastern region of the country, with an area of 745 km2. The watershed spreads over eight administrative blocks known as gewogs in Trashigang Dzongkhag District: Sakteng, Merak, Phongmey, Shongphu, Bidung, Bartsham, Radhi and Samkhar Gewogs. The Gamri River is formed by 19 tributaries originating in these eight gewogs. The Gamri is one of the

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Bhutan: The Gamri Watershed

main tributaries of the Drangme Chhu River, which drains into the Brahmaputra River in India and finally flows into the Bay of Bengal.

Figure B-1. Gamri Watershed Zones

The Gamri watershed is divided into three distinct zones, based on elevation, terrain, land cover, and predominant agricultural activities (see Figure B-1 and Table B-1). Zone I (upstream) is comprised mostly of highland pasture and mixed conifer forest, with altitudes ranging from 2,500 to 4,000 m, and an average slope gradient of 20-30 degrees. Zone II (midstream) and Zone III (downstream) contain pastures and agricultural fields, with altitudes ranging from 700 to 2,500 m, and a slope gradient of 21-40 degrees.

Table B-1. Gamri Watershed Zones

Zones Gewogs Area (km2) Altitude (m)

Zone I-Upstream Merak & Sakteng 375.52 2,500-4,000

Zone II-Midstream Radhi & Phongmey 130.57 700-2,500

Zone III-Downstream Bidung, Bartsham, Samkhar & Shongphu 224.62 700-2,500

Biological Resources and Land Use

The Gamri landscape is a significant watershed in eastern Bhutan containing more than 66 scattered settlements. The watershed was selected as the pilot landscape for COMDEKS activities mainly due to the significant biological diversity it contains and in recognition of the growing pressures on the landscape from grazing, over-extraction of fodder and fuel wood, landslides and the drying up of water sources.

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The watershed covers a diverse climate and contains an array of ecosystems ranging from alpine meadows to broadleaf forests. Land cover consists of 69.3 percent forest, 15 percent natural pasture, and 13.9 percent agricul-tural land. The remaining 1.6 percent of the surface area is comprised of water bodies, rocky outcrops, settlements and eroded areas. Agriculture, livestock (including yak) rearing, and weaving are the economic mainstays of the people of the watershed.

One significant source of biodiversity within the watershed is the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary (SWS), which covers almost three-fourths of Merak and Sakteng Gewogs. The SWS is representative of a diverse eastern Himalayan ecosystem, consisting of alpine meadows, temperate forest and warm broadleaf forest. Of the 46 species of rhodo-dendrons found in Bhutan, 35 species grow wild in the sanctuary, which is popularly known as the “Paradise of Rhododendrons.” Overall, the sanctuary harbours at least 203 plant species, including herbs, shrubs, and trees, and is home to globally threatened and endangered animal species like the Red Panda, Himalayan Serow, Wild Dog, Goral, Common Leopard, Capped Langur, Himalayan Black Bear, Musk Deer and Jungle Cat, to name a few.

About 70 percent of Bhutan’s total area is covered by forest and more than 50 percent is safeguarded as protected areas and biological corridors. Agriculture and livestock rearing are the main economic activities, with an estimated 69 percent of the population engaged in farming. With regard to the Gamri Watershed, Zone I has the highest livestock population in the target landscape, and cattle herding is the main income-generating activity. Zone II is known for its grain and staple crop production, including rice, maize, and potatoes. Both agriculture and livestock husbandry predominate in Zone III.

Installing solar fencing to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, Yenangbrangsa, COMDEKS Bhutan

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Socioeconomic Context

The Gamri watershed has a population of 32,364. The mean annual household income is Nu. 90,657 (US$1,333); the poverty rate is 12 percent; and the literacy rate is 60 percent. The Gamri watershed zones can be characterized as follows:

Zone I – Upstream: This zone includes the gewogs Merak and Sakteng, which are inhabited by about 4,200 people. The communities primarily comprise nomadic yak herders, locally known as Brokpas. Cattle/yak rearing is the main socioeconomic activity in this zone, contributing over 83 percent of household income. Zone I is highly significant as it is located in the upstream portion of the watershed and has the highest number of sub-water-sheds. At the same time, it has the highest livestock population, which has resulted in severe land degradation due to overgrazing and deforestation from fuel wood extraction (for cooking and heating) and lopping of tress for fodder. Landslides, ravines and gullies are common in this zone, causing the loss of large areas of forests, meadows and grazing areas every year, and triggering serious consequences downstream.

Zone II – Midstream: This zone includes the gewogs Radhi and Phongmey, with a total population of 9,865 people. Farming and livestock husbandry are the major economic activities in this zone. Radhi is often referred to as the “rice bowl of eastern Bhutan” because of its fertile rice fields and grain production. Other main crops culti-vated include paddy, maize, soybean, potatoes and vegetables. Additionally, Radhi is famous for silk textiles (buray gho and kira). Major challenges faced by Zone II include loss of agricultural land from flash floods (mainly triggered

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